


Remember When We Were Young

by universal_reno



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, How They Met, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Movie(s), Ravager-typical violence, Ravagers - Freeform, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-03 16:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10970775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universal_reno/pseuds/universal_reno
Summary: Kraglin wasn't quite sure what to expect when a Ravager ship crashed into his life, but he knew he was in for one hell of a ride.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my perpetually WIP version of how Yondu and Kraglin came to be the galaxy's most awesome space pirate bros! Yes, it's been done before by people far more skilled than I. And yes, it's been a WIP for nearly a year and I just now got around to writing the second chapter. And no, I probably won't make them have sex. Honestly I just wanted to invade your brains with my version of Kraglin's backstory because I'm overly found of him and have spent far too much time thinking about it when I probably should've been doing something else.
> 
> My intention is for this to more or less fit with the MCU, but my Krags is half Spartoi half Xandarian. With Spartax being the homeworld of J'Son, Quill's narcissistic dickbag of a biological father from the comics. Just FYI in case you're wondering why he's not chilling on Xandar.

Tarax VII wasn’t a proper planet. Hell, it was hardly a proper spaceport. More like a metal frame built around an asteroid tethered via gravity anchor to one of the many labor colonies on the fringes of Spartax space. There were a whole series of outposts just like it clustered around the far edges of the Empire, mining ore from their respective asteroids and units from any passing traveler desperate enough to stop for repairs. It was all part of the Emperor’s grand economic plan. Would lift his citizens out of poverty, he said. Would generate growth and jobs, he said. 

Kraglin spat in the general direction of the garage’s government-issue portrait of J’Son as he packed up his tools for the night. At 18 he’d spent nearly six years fixing alien ships in service of the Emperor's brave new economy, but somehow any units he earned always seemed to make their way back into the Imperial coffers or the till at his local long before they had a chance to do him much good. Tonight he couldn’t even afford a drink, which meant his often surly disposition was bordering on hostile.

The rookie who’d just arrived to take the next shift flinched, eyes darting to the corners of the workshop like he expected someone from the Intelligence Service to pop out at any second and shoot them both dead for Kraglin’s sacrilege. New arrival from the main system, then. Everyone who’d spent more than a few months on Tarax VII knew the Imperial Government didn’t have the time or inclination for surveillance this far out. Kraglin had been transported when he was twelve, just after his mother was executed in connection with a plot to bomb the Ministry of Labor in retaliation for one too many broken promises of reform. He rolled his eyes and punched the new kid lightly on the shoulder.

“Ain’t gotta worry about the Emperor’s boys out here” he drawled “Tarax’ll kill ya dead enough all by itself.” Then, as an afterthought “But not half as dead as you’ll be if I find you ain’t sorted out those power coils by the start of next day cycle.”

The rookie squeaked a quick “yessir” and practically sprinted to the supply room. Evidently he’d heard the stories about that time a particularly hungover Kraglin had taken out a pair of Skrull bounty hunters with nothing but a wrench and a half empty bottle of moonshine. Or maybe dealing with the son of a known terrorist just made him jumpy. Some people were too damn loyal to the Empire even after it’d tossed them out. 

Kraglin fiddled with his space mask as he waited in the airlock that separated the repair shop from the main docking bay. His first three years working there it had just been a regular door, but lately the force field on the docking bay had been playing up and any arriving ship stood at least a 50% chance of depressurizing the whole sector. 

Didn’t look like that would be much of an issue tonight, though. Not so much as a Hoard scouting party had come in for five day-cycles. Which brought him back to his current predicament of a maxed out tab and no units for the bar. He’d either have to spend the night sober or do the landlady another favor. He shuddered at the thought. The landlady was a shriveled old husk of a Badoon, and her preferred favors were obscenely biological.

\----------------

Calling the past 12 hours of Yondu’s life 'trying' would have been an understatement. It wasn’t like he’d failed the job. He’d assassinated Kree Accusers for fuck sakes; he was hardly going to trip up when it came to taking out some small-time Spartoi gangster. It just would’ve been nice if the client had mentioned that said Spartoi gangster had a habit of wearing explosives rigged to detonate in the event his heart stopped beating as a means to discourage any overly ambitious lieutenants keen to carve a bloody swath up the career ladder. 

Yondu idly wondered if there were any Ravager captains employing the same tactic. Not that the potential for a coupe would be on his priority list much longer if things kept up as they were. Based on the amount of blood he’d been coughing up since dragging himself out of the rubble of the target’s office he guessed that the shard of glass currently embedded in his chest had hit something important. 

He squinted at his nav display and rubbed furiously at his eyes when they refused to focus. Autopilot was set for some little dump of a Spartoi mining outpost where the Ravagers occasionally offloaded contraband for distribution throughout the Empire. The station’s docking system had been dodgy when he was there two years ago and he doubted it had improved with time. Figured the one day he was in bad enough shape to admit he sucked at parking would be the one day he had to do it at a station too decrepit to have any assists. 

The outpost was close enough now to see even through the haze that insisted on clouding his vision. He switched over to manual control and pointed his ship at the faint gold glow of the docking bay. 500 meters, 300… Probably closer to 100 by the time he realized he wasn’t seeing anything but black anymore. His last thought before he lost consciousness was that it was a damn shame he wouldn’t be around to see the look on Stakar’s face when the remains of his M-ship were scraped off the asteroid. Stodgy old bastard was sure to appreciate Yondu’s contribution to the clan once he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is dialogue, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to consistently write a Southern accent despite having one myself.

Maybe this night wouldn’t be a complete wash after all. Kraglin had just made it to the main door of the hangar when a ship half landed half crashed into the bay closest to his garage. Ravager ship too, by the look of it. Ravagers weren’t a common sight around the outpost, but when they did show up they brought equal parts trouble and opportunity. For a bored teenager both possibilities held equal appeal that was further enhanced by the potential for large sums of untraceable units. 

As soon as he was reasonably sure he wouldn’t be sucked out into space by a forcefield malfunction he made his way over to the M-ship and positioned himself by the main hatch. One hand went instinctively to the blaster tucked into the waistband of his trousers. It wouldn’t do much good against an entire Ravager boarding party, but every other mechanic on the station was as hard up for work as him and he was in no mood to encourage competition. 

He scanned the ship for damage while he waited for any sign of life from the pilot. Everything appeared to be in order. Or at least not seriously enough out of order to warrant such a shitty landing. Maybe they’d run out of fuel? Ravagers were usually a bit better prepared than that, though. Or at any rate the ones who weren’t didn’t tend to live long enough to get their own M-ships. 

He fell back from the hatch a few steps and ducked out of sight behind one of the massive, feather-like panels that made up the nearest wing. Killed by space pirates was hardly the worst death in the galaxy, but he’d feel like a real sucker if it happened while he was grinning like an idiot right in the doorway of a trap.

Several minutes passed. The ship’s engines ticked quietly as they cooled, but still no sign of a pilot. Kraglin leveled his blaster threateningly at a shop boy who emerged from the garage next door but otherwise remained as near to motionless as could be expected from an adolescent Xandarian. Finally he grew impatient and pounded on the hatch.

“Room service! Came all the way down here just for you but I ain’t got all night. Keep hidin in there much longer and I’ll let Larssa sort you out. Last ship she worked on imploded round it’s own plasma drive ‘fore they even made it to…”

His rant-turned-sales-pitch was interrupted by the faint hiss of the M-ship’s hatch finally disengaging. Kraglin took several steps back and tucked the blaster out of sight but kept a hand on it. Nothing happened. He huffed impatiently, rolling his eyes behind the red lenses of his space mask before yanking the hatch the rest of the way open. Maybe he was going to be shot to death by Ravagers for his impertinence, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to stand around all night waiting for it.

The sight that greeted him made him glad he still had the mask on. If it could keep out the vacuum of space it probably worked for biohazards too. At least he hoped it did, because that was most certainly what the inside of this ship was. The person he assumed was responsible for the worst landing of the month had collapsed just inside the hatch in a rapidly growing pool of sticky blue blood. A trail of the same lead back to the pilot’s seat and even more was smeared over the control console. Kraglin drew his blaster again and nudged the apparent cadaver with the barrel. 

“Hey jackass, you still breathin?” He was pretty sure he knew the answer to that question and had already begun to concoct a plan based on his assumptions. Well, at least he had if ‘dump the corpse, commandeer a Ravager ship, and finally see the back of the Spartax Empire once and for all’ constituted a plan. 

He made it all of two steps into the ship before a sharp whistle and an eerie red streak of light brought him up short. He stared at the strange weapon hovering in front of his eyes for half a second that seemed to stretch on for an hour before the fallen pilot began to cough violently and the arrow clattered to the deck. 

Every instinct screamed at him to run; to get away from the dying pirate and his crazy demon arrow. But those kinds of instincts rarely paid the bills and never lead to anything interesting. So instead he picked up the weapon and waved it in the Ravager’s face.

“Fuck’s this thing?” he demanded. He went to grab the front of the guy’s coat and shake him for good measure, but then he caught sight of the glass embedded in his chest. Based on the shredded flesh around it that wasn’t the only piece, either. Blood was one thing, but that? Well, that was just nasty. 

The sight of it made his legs go weak and he was glad he was already kneeling down for his attempted interrogation. His mask felt far too hot all of a sudden, like it was suffocating him more than helping him breathe. He pulled it off, but his first breath of fresh air was so thick with the smell of blood that he gagged.

The Ravager fixed him with the most piercing glare a dying man could muster. 

“As if there weren’t a big enough mess in here already” he rasped “you puke in my ship, boy, you’re cleanin it up.”

Kraglin blinked at him in disbelief, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. 

“You’re crazy” he said flatly. 

“Bleedin to death’ll do that to ya.” He gritted his teeth and clutched feebly at the wound in his chest. Kraglin noted that at least one of those teeth was gold, a cruel fang-like thing. This guy was clearly milking the Ravager image for all it was worth. 

“Now, since you clearly ain’t got the stones to kill me, there a medic somewhere on this stars-damned rock?” 

Kraglin leaned back on his heels and gave what he hoped was a cruel smirk. Unfortunately, like many Xandarians his age, he was still a bit spotty which rather reduced the effect.

“Ain’t gotta kill ya” he said nonchalantly. “You’re bleedin out all on your own, like ya said. All I gotta do is wait, then help myself to your ship once you’re dead. No new bounties or nothing.”

Well, except the bounty that would automatically be triggered if he strayed out of range of the outpost before his indenture ended. The conditions of his transportation had included ten years labor in the service of a drunken old Spartoi ex-con turned mechanic, and implantation of a tracking chip to ensure his compliance with the arrangement. But there was no helping that. 

“So lemme ask ya, Ravager. I call a medic, what’s in it for me?”

The Ravager gazed levelly at him for a moment before he burst out laughing. It was a horrible wheezy, gurgling sound that sent a mist of blood splattering across the nearby bulkhead and Kraglin’s face, but it was laughter none the less. Kraglin shuffled back, wiping the blood from his eyes in disgust. 

“Gonna help yourself to my ship once I’m dead? Then what? Spend the next three days dodgin everyone who wants to shoot this ship outta the sky with me in it until the fuel rods run dry and you freeze to death? Or go runnin back to Stakar expectin him to welcome you with open arms and believe I died of natural causes?” He fixed Kraglin with a look of almost parental disappointment. “Least turn my body over to the Corps an’ collect the bounty. Use yer damn head, boy.”

“Who the hell’s Stakar?” Kraglin was vaguely amazed that anyone so gravely wounded could manage to talk so much. If not for all the coughing up blood he would’ve assumed this guy was from one of those species that stashed their vital organs somewhere besides their chests with the way he was carrying on. 

Clearly this was the wrong thing to say. The Ravager dragged a hand over his face in a show of exasperation. If he’d been able to turn around Kraglin suspected he’d have banged his head against the wall for dramatic effect. 

“Who’s Stakar? Admiral Stakar? Richest damn Ravager in the galaxy? Stars, boy... You been livin on this rock or under it?”

He spoke slowly and clearly, over-emphasizing every syllable as though he was speaking to a particularly slow child. Kraglin snarled and tightened his grip on the arrow, intending to plunge it into the blue bastard’s throat and shut him up once and for all. 

But at that moment all the blood loss finally seemed to get the better of him. He slumped down against the wall a little further. Kraglin wasn’t quite sure why he felt the need to prop him up against his shoulder, or to shake him until his eyes cracked open once again.

“So much for just lettin me die, huh?” He sounded far weaker than he had only a minute before and seemed unable to even lift his head anymore.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll get ya patched up. What species are ya anyway? Kree or somethin?” 

The Ravager managed one more defiant glare and spat a fat gob of blood onto the front of Kraglin’s shirt. 

“Centaurian. Name’s Yondu Udonta. Best commit it to memory.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yondu is rudely awakened by a couple of adolescent pests.

Yondu woke to the smell of antiseptic and the sound of bickering. At first he assumed he’d somehow made it back to Stakar’s ship. Disagreements between crew weren’t an uncommon occurrence on Ravager vessels, and as far as Yondu was concerned Stakar in particular let the men have far too much leeway when it came to voicing their own opinions.

But no. The Xandarian he caught snatches of as he drifted somewhere on the edge on consciousness wasn’t actually what was being spoken. It was being filtered through his translation chip. He couldn’t put it into words, exactly (particularly when he was doped up and at least a litre short on blood), but hearing things with his ears and hearing them through the chip were different. And Stakar’s command crew all spoke fluent Xandarian.

“…should’ve kept him on the station. I can’t treat him out here! You have any idea how weird Centaurians are on the inside?”

“Ain’t gotta treat him! Just keep him alive ‘till we find this Stakar guy. Then we turn him over an’ we’re big damn heroes whether he ends up bleedin to death later or not!”

“Big damn heroes to who? Ravagers? You’ve been hit in the head one too many times, Krags. I never should’ve agreed to this stupid plan!”

Yondu wanted to yell at whoever it was to shut up. His head felt like someone had put a bullet through it, and the rest of his body was even worse. But his attempts to curse out whoever had the audacity to wake him, or better yet whistle and shut them up once and for all, were hampered by something covering his mouth.

He cracked one eye open and could just make out the fuzzy shape of an oxygen mask strapped over his mouth and nose. That in and of itself would’ve been alarming enough considering his species used whistling as a primary combat strategy, but then he made the mistake of looking further down. The gauze taped over the place that had previously held a large shard of glass was a definite improvement; the tube sticking out of his chest a few inches away not so much.

Spending his childhood as a Kree battle slave and his adulthood as a Ravager had resulted in a stronger than average constitution. But even he had limits and, if the rapidly closing darkness was anything to go by, this whole situation exceeded them.

\------------------------------------------------------

When he woke again it was to someone pressing an ice chip between his lips. Definitely not Stakar’s ship, then. No Ravager medic he’d ever met had the patience for that type of coddling. He sifted through the haze of his most recent memories and managed to dredge up a fleeting image of the docking bay at some backwater Spartoi outpost, and the greasy face of an even more backwater Spartoi kid.

When he forced his eyes open, however, he wasn’t greeted by the face from his memories. If anything this kid looked even younger. Plump, curly hair, clear skin, teeth the shape that Xandarian teeth were traditionally assumed to be… If he was even the same species as the other guy he wasn’t making a point of showing it.

As soon as the kid saw he was awake he smiled down at him in that carefully schooled way most cultures seemed to reserve for the sick or dying. Yondu had no concept of himself as either, and glared back as hard as his current condition would allow.

“You’re awake!” And damned if the little dork didn’t seem genuinely happy about it. “Just take it easy, alright? You’re… well, a lot of your blood is kind of all over the ship. And also in your lungs. But I fixed that!”

Yondu blinked up at him, slightly dazed but mostly struck speechless by the realization that this chipper idiot and his partner had somehow managed to bag one of the most feared Ravagers in the galaxy. If he’d been the sort of guy who was prone to embarrassment the shame may well have killed him.

“Kid, shuddup.” His voice was barely above a harsh whisper, but the boy still looked duly affronted. The second face that swam into his field of vision a moment later gave looking affronted a pass and instead went straight on to spelling it out.

“Don’t you be talkin to him like that!” Oh, great. Greasy mohawk kid again. Just when this day couldn’t get any better.

“Who the fuck are you people?” Yondu pushed himself up until he could sit against the bulkhead of what he now recognized as his own M-ship. It took way too much effort. If the Ravager rank-and-file saw him like this they’d eat him alive, quite possibly literally. The younger kid moved to help but he swatted him away.

“Kraglin Obfonteri. And you’d best commit _that_ to memory.” The scrawnier of the pair smirked down at him, all patchy stubble and spots and sharpened teeth. The mohawk had been pulled back into a small topknot, which only served to highlight the jutting cheekbones and obviously repeatedly broken nose. He was of a type with any one of a hundred Ravager recruits Yondu had seen come and go over the years, all of them lean and vicious and eager for prizes but too green to do much about it. Most had ended up as cannon fodder.

“Yerrov Zan” his companion supplied, fiddling with the bandages now covering the spot where the tube had been earlier. He looked far more Xandarian than Kraglin, for all that was worth. Frankly the two species were almost indistinguishable with their clothes on.

“And y’all are what? Galaxy’s worst bounty hunters?”

“Good enough to catch us a Ravager, seems like.” 

This Kraglin boy either had balls bigger than the asteroid he’d been living on, or was too stupid to realize who he was talking to. Yondu was leaning toward the latter.

“More like bounty hunted” the one who’d called himself Zan muttered under his breath. 

“Hunted. Not caught. And we ain’t gonna be caught. Not in this ship.” 

“Hunted for what? Shopliftin?” He swatted Zan’s hands away when the fussing progressed from physically uncomfortable to annoying, which in Yondu’s book was much worse. The kid swatted right back and continued his work with an air of petulant defiance.

“Hunted because genius here set off his tracking chip the second we went through the jump point outside the Tarax belt.” He jerked a thumb in Kraglin’s direction.

“Bounty ain’t even 1000 units. Ain’t no one gonna bother chasin down an armed jump ship for that kinda chump change.”

“No one except V’Sar. You know how he gets! He’ll come after you, and if he catches you you’ll be cooling your heels on that damn station for another ten years if he doesn’t kick your head in first!”

Yondu had stopped listening at ‘tracking chip’ and instead focused on struggling to his feet despite Zan’s best efforts to stop him. Ignoring the way the room spun around his head he grabbed Kraglin by the shoulders and shoved him toward the hatch that led to the engine room.

“Get your scrawny ass down there and huddle up by the fuel rods. Radiation’ll scramble the signal from that chip till I can get it outta ya.”

“Outta me? You think I ain’t tried that already? They put them things in deep! ‘Sides, I just said it weren’t even 1000 units bounty. V’Sar’s a fuckin pushover and I bet them other guys followin us are just the same!”

“What other guys?” Yondu was already making his way to the cockpit, leaning on any relatively immovable object he could get his hands on to stay upright.

As soon as he dropped into the pilot seat he pulled up the sensor readout. Sure enough three other ships were strung out behind them, the nearest a Kree fighter not even five minutes away. The all too familiar engine signature made his blood run cold. He glared daggers at Kraglin over his shoulder.

“Obfonteri” he snarled, low and dangerous. “You been flyin this thing?”

Kraglin nodded, remembering the arrow from before and suddenly finding the prospect of a bit of engine radiation far more appealing than staying up here now that his kidnapping victim was back on his feet. He’d told Zan to keep him sedated, damn it!

“Well then boy, unless you got some kinda afterlife ya wanna see real soon, you’d best get up here and help me shake these bastards.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then I just had to go stick a damn OC in it. Really though, did you expect Kraglin to have any kind of medical skills? 
> 
> Random trivia: In the first draft of this Kraglin's more responsible childhood friend was actually Dey, because I adore him and he's totally the best space cop ever. But then GotG2 and Stakar happened, and I needed someone a bit less Nova Corps for what I've got planned later.


End file.
